A group of Notre Dame law students put their lawyering skills to practice last week in the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship’s 16th Annual McCloskey Business Plan Competition. Master of Science in Patent Law student Brittany Butler partnered with Rebecca Shute, ’16 ESTEEM, Kevin Schneider, ’16 M.S.A., Michael Schneider ’16 M.S.A. and Charissa Quinlan, ’18 Ph.D., formed the winning team — Cetrus Therapeutics — and together took home the grand prize of $25,000.…

Notre Dame Law School in conjunction with the University of Leeds School of Law, University of Sussex School of Law and U.K. Arts & Humanities Research Council will host a one-day symposium, Emerging Challenges in Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. The event, which is the fourth in a series of talks on the subject, will be from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 29, in Notre Dame’s Main Building.…

Twenty years since the birth of South Africa’s democracy, graduates of Notre Dame’s LL.M program in International Human Rights Law with the Center for Civil and Human Rights returned to Notre Dame to discuss their efforts to maintain and improve the country’s developing constitutionalism.

The Notre Dame Law Association will present Saint Mary’s College President Carol Ann Mooney, ’77 J.D., with the Fr. Michael McCafferty Award at 6 p.m. Friday, April 22, at a reception and dinner in the Eck Commons.

Professor Emeritus of Law Conrad Lawler Kellenberg died on April 8, 2016. He was 88. Kellenberg’s memorial service will be held on Monday, April 18, at 10 a.m. at St. Joseph Chapel at Holy Cross College.

Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State & Society will host a lecture, Religious Freedom at Home and Abroad: Finding a Better Way, at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 14 in the Notre Dame Hesburgh Center Auditorium.

The lecture will be presented by John Witte, Jr., Robert W. Woodruff professor of law, McDonald distinguished professor, and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Witte will speak on religious freedom at home and abroad.…

Mbuyiseli Madlanga, LL.M. ’90, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa will teach and participate in several events in April as the Judge James J. Clynes, Jr., Visiting Chair. Madlanga, will teach a course on the ethics of litigation within the judicial process and co-teach a course on comparative constitutional law. He will also participate in a lecture series organized in conjunction with the Center for Civil and Human Rights.

Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs, ’66 B.A., recently sat down with a group of environmental law students at Notre Dame to discuss growing tensions between preserving Colorado’s natural resources — land and water — and municipal growth.

Josephine van Zeben, tutorial fellow in Law at Worcester College, University of Oxford, will spend March 21 through April 15 as a visiting scholar connecting with faculty and students, as well as teaching a two-credit international environmental law course.

Notre Dame Law School students last week participated in morning yoga, pet therapy, and a seminar focused on the power of positive thinking. According to Notre Dame’s Student Bar Association, the events are part of a larger weeklong initiative that aims to educate students about the mental health challenges particular to law students.

Greg Hobbs, Jr., B.A. ’66, former justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, will speak to Notre Dame Law Students on “Water and the West: A View from the Bench” at 12:30 p.m. Monday in the Faculty Meeting Room, 2130 Eck Hall of Law.

Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Law and Market Behavior will host the third LAMB Corporate Governance Symposium: Hedge Fund Activism in Corporate Governance: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications on Friday, April 8.

NDLS will host a Junior Patent Roundtable on Friday, April 1, with senior scholars discussing with junior scholars several of their research pieces in the field of patent law. The roundtable will include four sessions, each devoted to one research paper with commentary and discussion to follow.

The Notre Dame Law School Program on Church, State & Society has awarded three summer fellowships to first-year law students Jessen Baker, Samantha Scheuler, and Kristina Semeryuk. Each will receive a $10,000 fellowship award to work for a religious institution in a legal capacity this summer.

Notre Dame students, faculty and administrators are gearing up for a night of fun to honor the memory of Rev. Michael Dillon McCafferty at the annual Father Mike Variety Show.

Father McCafferty was the assistant dean of Notre Dame Law School when he died at the age of 40 in 1987 of lymphatic cancer.

The show, organized by the Law School’s Student Bar Association, takes place on Wednesday, March 23, at Legends of Notre Dame Restaurant and Alehouse. As one of the largest Law School fundraisers, in the form of an auction and talent show, proceeds generated by ticket sales and auction items will be allocated toward scholarships. Tickets will be available in the Commons from Monday – Thursday from 12:30pm to 1:30pm for cash only, and in the SBA…

Notre Dame Law School’s Hispanic Law Student Association recently announced JoAnn Chávez, ’86 B.A., ’90 J.D., as this year’s recipient of the Graciela Olivarez Award. HLSA presented Chávez with the award March 18, at a dinner at the Main Building.

The Peggy Browning Fund recently awarded second-year law student, Ena Kaur, a 10-week summer fellowship to support Kaur’s summer work with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Washington, D.C.

On Friday, March 11, Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., proudly announced a $1 million gift from 1982 alumnus Jim Aviles and Milena de Goes. The gift will support Brasilian students seeking an LL.M. degree from the Law School. Law School Dean Nell Jessup Newton offered thanks to Aviles and Goes noting “this beautiful gift strengthens our LL.M. program and allows us, in the Notre Dame tradition, to form lawyers who will be a part of the authentic development of the rule of law in Brasil. We could not be more thrilled.”

Randall T. Shepard, Indiana’s longest-serving Supreme Court Chief Justice, recently visited Notre Dame’s London Law Center to teach a course on judicial process. Shepard was invited to lead the half-semester, one-credit course as a Clynes Distinguished Visiting Jurist. The now-retired chief has had an extensive career that encompasses titles such as legal author, law professor, historic preservationist, and arts supporter.

Three immigration attorneys visited Notre Dame Law School recently for a panel discussion on various immigration issues and challenges. The panel included Aimee Heitz, Directing Attorney at Indiana Legal Services, Inc., Immigrants’ and Language Rights Center, Michael Durham, ’01 J.D., solo practitioner at Durham Immigration Law, and Rudy Monterrosa, ’01 J.D., solo practitioner at Monterrosa Law Group and adjunct professor of immigration law at NDLS…

Esli, a 16-year-old from El Salvador, and his mother Emely, won the right to asylum in the United States, with the help of two Notre Dame Law Students.

Stephanie Torres and Christina Shakour, both 3Ls, helped provide Esli and his mother with free legal assistance through their work in Notre Dame Law School’s National Immigrant Justice Center Externship program.…

Graeme Dinwoodie, professor of Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law at the University of Oxford, recently spent the week at Notre Dame Law School as a visiting scholar. While on campus Dinwoodie was a guest lecturer in Professor Mark McKenna’s Trademarks and Unfair Competition class, and presented his research, Territoriality and Trademarks: Lessons from (and for?) the European Union, to faculty.

Notre Dame’s Center for Civil and Human Rights recently hosted a faculty panel discussion focused on engaging America’s political process through voting. The event, co-hosted by a cross-section of student organizations, brought out undergraduate and graduate students as well as members of the South Bend community.